In the early 1770s the 33rd Regiment of Foot served in Minorca and the West Indies. Its colonel since 1766 was Charles, Earl Cornwallis, but as the war went on Cornwallis commanded whole armies, so he rarely led the regiment himself. The man who really led the 33rd was its lieutenant colonel, James Webster. He was the son of an Edinburgh minister and had served in the regiment since joining as a lieutenant in 1760. Webster took command in April 1774 and led the 33rd through almost every campaign of the war, until he was killed at Guilford Courthouse in 1781. His drilling and discipline helped give the regiment its reputation as one of the best-trained in the British Army, and it became known as “The Pattern”, the standard other regiments should aim for. Its red coat was unusual: the facings at collar and cuffs were also red, not a contrasting colour, and officers wore silver buttons and lace.
When war broke out the 33rd was part of the reinforcement sent to America, sailing with Cornwallis in February 1776. Its first action was the failed British attempt on Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1776, known as the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. The regiment then sailed north to join the main army under Sir William Howe at New York. When it arrived it was brigaded with the Guards.
In August 1776 the 33rd fought at the Battle of Long Island (Brooklyn Heights), a heavy American defeat that forced Washington back onto Manhattan. On 16 September it was part of Cornwallis’s Reserve sent to cover the withdrawal of British light infantry that had pushed too far forward at Harlem Heights. Later that autumn it fought at White Plains and in the capture of Fort Washington, and it served through the campaign in New Jersey.
In 1777 the regiment took part in the Philadelphia campaign. It fought at Brandywine in September, at Germantown in October and at Whitemarsh in December. In June 1778, during the army’s march from Philadelphia back to New York, it fought at Monmouth (also called Freehold), where Webster was praised for his gallantry. In 1779 the regiment was in the operations around Verplanck’s Point on the Hudson River.
In 1780 the 33rd went south with Sir Henry Clinton’s expedition against Charleston. During the siege, Webster commanded a detachment, which included Banastre Tarleton’s British Legion, that fought at Moncks Corner and cut the city off from the countryside. Charleston surrendered in May, and Clinton thanked Webster and “the corps which acted under him” in his report. On 16 August 1780 the regiment helped win the Battle of Camden, where Webster was wounded. Cornwallis praised his “distinguished courage and ability”.
During the winter campaign of 1781 in North Carolina, Webster led a diversionary attack at Beattie’s Ford in the race to the Dan River, and the 33rd fought at Wetzell’s Mill in early March. On 15 March 1781, at Guilford Courthouse, Cornwallis’s army of around 1,900 men attacked Nathanael Greene’s much larger American force. Webster led the left wing of the first line, made up of the 23rd and 33rd Regiments, and drove into the American second and third lines. The British held the field, but at a cost of nearly a quarter of their army. The historian Fortescue wrote: “Never, perhaps, has the British soldier been seen to greater advantage than in this obstinate and bloody battle.” Webster was hit twice. He died of his wounds a short time later and was buried at Elizabethtown, North Carolina. Tarleton wrote that no officer was “more deservedly regretted than Lieutenant-colonel Webster, who united all the virtues of civil life to the gallantry and professional knowledge of a soldier.”
The regiment then marched with Cornwallis into Virginia and fought at Green Spring in July 1781. It ended the campaign besieged at Yorktown, and on 19 October 1781 most of the 33rd surrendered with the rest of Cornwallis’s army. The men stayed prisoners until the end of the war. A detachment that was in Charleston at the time escaped capture and moved to Canada. In 1782, at Cornwallis’s request, the regiment was renamed the 33rd (or First Yorkshire West Riding) Regiment, because it had always recruited there. The main body was released in 1783 and joined the detachment in Canada, where the regiment stayed until it came home to England in 1786.